Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

Jocelyn set her plate on her lap, and took a long sip of the wine. Her stomach fluttered, but at least the hot tears didn’t return. No point in waiting, the words wanted to come out. “So we left the story with me and Dawn in the middle of the road, and Dawn in pain, and me feeling her pain, and on my way to Johnson’s Ford to convince people I’d never met to leave a town they’d struggled to build their whole lives.

“Well, I might as well have promised Tamay I’d take care of Dawn, and besides, who could have left her? So I sat there with her and fed her water and sang to her, and she let me stroke her back even though she’d never seen me before. Finally, she pushed herself away from me and looked deep into my eyes. Her voice trembled as she said, ‘Thank you.’

She glanced at Silver, finding Silver’s pale eyes staring at her, waiting. Silver still looked like Dawn, and still, like Dawn, looked like she needed Jocelyn. Except Silver had her own scarlet cloak, and her need was simple and healthy, unlike Dawn’s naked, scraped-raw tenderness. Jocelyn cleared her throat. “I stood and helped her up. We walked back to town just as the sun was setting. She moved slowly, as if she were an old woman, as if every movement hurt. Perhaps it did. Perhaps her grief was so heavy it weighed on her bones.

“Johnson’s Ford didn’t have an inn, so Dawn led me home with her for the night. I really should have called a town meeting right then, maybe stayed one night, and gone on, but I didn’t. I stayed a week.

“Dawn’s house had two beds, hers and another that must have been Lisle’s, but Dawn didn’t offer it and I couldn’t make myself ask. Besides, I’d been traveling a few months anyway, and the floor wasn’t as hard for me as Dawn’s sadness.”

Jocelyn stopped and took another pull of wine, leaving her plate untouched.

Silver spoke softly, compellingly, a voice full of promise. “You loved her, didn’t you? The first time I heard ‘Dawn of Sorrows,’ I thought it must have been written by a man.”

Had she? They’d never been lovers. But she knew every line of Dawn’s face, every curve of her slender arms. She knew the shape of her fingers (long, slender, with one pinky shorter than the other). Even after all this time, she remembered how warm Dawn’s hand had felt in hers. Even though she’d only had weeks with Dawn, she still stopped by streams and pretty trees in bloom, and wished Dawn were there to point them out to.

She swallowed hard. “I loved her beauty and her loss, and her story was so romantic and so tragic, and I’d seen the most recent part of it. So maybe I was star-eyed about her. But there’s nothing romantic about helping someone with such deep grief. So . . . even if maybe you’ve found a grain of truth, it didn’t feel that way the days we spent in Johnson’s Ford.

“I talked to the mayor that next morning. I told him about the Choosing, and he helped me get news out that Selenay had sent me to talk to the town.

“I met with about twenty townspeople that night. Farmers and hunters; strong and tough, sure of themselves. The women held their little ones like they were gold, especially the older boys, watching me carefully. Their faces were stoic and still as I told them Selenay wanted them to abandon Johnson’s Ford.

“When you’ve worked your whole life to keep a town together, when you’ve built the buildings with your own hands, you don’t much want to just pick up and leave. After the first amazement at having the Queen’s words sent to them, the meaning of the words sank in. Some of the parents understood right away, but most people’s faces stayed stones to me, and I knew I hadn’t convinced them. So I told them I’d sing to them, every night, and that they could find me at Dawn’s house most of the day if they had questions. I only sang a few songs that first night. Even though I put as much of my Gift into those songs as I could, the town didn’t just jump up and start packing.

“Another mage-born storm slammed into town that night, and by morning the streets ran with water and the river had risen noticeably, but still no one agreed to leave. Between me and the storm, it took four days before anyone started to pack. Those four days are their own story that I’ll share some other time.